Viacom retools channels under Zarghami, Herzog

Viacom has promoted Cyma Zarghami and Doug Herzog to run its channel operations, which will now be split into two groups under a new restructuring.

Both are Viacom veterans, and have divided up channels Van Toffler previously oversaw before announcement of his departure earlier this week. Toffler officially exits in April after helping the transition.

Herzog will lead Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, which comprises Comedy Central, MTV, MTV 2, VH1, Spike, Logo and their digital businesses.

He previously headed up Viacom Entertainment Group, which housed Comedy Central, Spike TV and TV Land. He has been with Viacom since 1984 except for a six-year period between 1998 and 2004, when he moved, firstly Fox Broadcasting and then USA Network.

In the new role, he continues to be based in New York and LA.

Zarghami, current Viacom’s kids channels chief, becomes president of Viacom Kids and Family Group, which will house Nickelodeon and its stable of networks, plus music-themed channels CMT and CMT Pure Country and TV Land, the latter of which said goodbye to its previous president, Larry Jones, this week.

Herzog and Zarghami now report directly to Viacom CEO and president Philippe Dauman, who announced the restructuring in an internal memo seen by DTVE’s sister title TBI.

“The new groups are an enormous opportunity for us to take advantage of our strong creative teams, to share our expertise, and to promote greater cross marketing and, in some cases, cross channel programming activity,” said Dauman.

Debi Lee at BET Networks, Viacom International Media Networks’ president Bob Bakish and Paramount Pictures boss Brad Grey also report to Dauman.

“Our industry is in transition and change does not always come easy, but we have a tremendous amount of talent at Viacom and we are innovating at every level and at every brand,” added Dauman.

“We are working hard to adapt to changing audience behaviour, to incorporate new forms of distribution and to better integrate technology into everything we do.”